Some Columbia-Tusculum residents are
upset about the proposed design of new apartment buildings on the
corner of Delta Avenue and Columbia Parkway. The 76-unit Delta Flats'
design was apparently supposed to fit into the nearby business
district, which includes the Precinct restaurant.

HBO and showrunners for its new
medieval show Game of Thrones have apologized for using Bush's head
on a stake in a scene where one of the dudes shows someone a line of
traitors' heads on stakes.

Surgeons replaced a 10-year-old girl's
has blood vessel with one grown with her own stem cells. The vein was
taken from a dead person, stripped of its cells and then coated in
the girls' stem cells. Doctors says there has been a “striking”
improvement in her quality of life, according to the BBC.

Mitt Romney will visit the Cincinnati
area this week: tonight at a private fundraiser at the Hilton
Netherland Plaza, Thursday at a Carthage manufacturing comany and
this weekend to hang with Rep. John Boehner up north and probably
with Sen. Rob Portman at some point. President Obama plans to be
around soon, too.

Economists say Romney's job creation
claims need more specifics before they'll be believable. On the other
hand, Obama's American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act has saved or created 1.4 million to 3.3 million
jobs, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and the American
Jobs Act would create 1.9 million, according to Moody's. From NPR:

+11.5 million — that's how many jobs
Romney claimed
last September he would create in the first term of his
administration. But true to form, Romney never said how he would
create that many jobs, nor has any reputable economist backed up his
claim. "Nowhere in the 160 page plan could I find a stated job
creation number," wrote Rebecca Thiess of EPI. "The math
doesn't just appear to be fuzzy — it appears to be nonexistent."
Added David Madland of the Center for American Progress: "It is a plan from the Republican
candidate for president designed to maximize corporate profits. What
it doesn't do is help the middle class or create jobs." Even the
conservative editorial page of theWall Street Journal called Romney's 59-point economic
tome "surprisingly timid and tactical considering our economic
predicament."

Democrat Ron Barber won the
congressional seat left by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who survived an
assassination attempt and resigned to focus on her recovery. The win
gives Democrats hope for taking control of the House in November.

What makes the referendum in California different is that, for the
first time, voters and not politicians will be the ones to decide.
And this has the food industry worried. Understandably so, since only
one in four Americans is convinced that GMOs are "basically safe", according to a survey conducted by the Mellman Group, and a big majority wants
food containing GMOs to be labeled.

This is one of the few issues in America today that enjoys broad
bipartisan support: 89% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats want
genetically altered foods to be labeled, as they already are in 40
nations in Europe, in Brazil, and even in China. In 2007, then
candidate Obama latched onto this popular issue saying that he would
push for labeling – a promise the president has yet to keep.

The second day of the Jerry Sandusky
sexual abuse trial continues today, with a second accuser expected to
testify. In his opening statement, Sandusky's lawyer questioned the
credibility of the eight young men accusing him of multiple crimes
over several years, claiming that they have a financial motive to
make false claims. He also acknowledged that Sandusky's behavior and
his showering with young boys was “kind of strange” but said it
was not sexual abuse.

It
starts with an attempt to undercut Romney. As a corporate buyout
executive, Romney shipped jobs overseas and reaped millions of
dollars in fees from takeover deals that destroyed U.S. factory jobs,
the Obama campaign says. As Massachusetts governor, Romney built a
poor record on job creation, the argument continues.

Turning
to his own record, Obama tells voters that he inherited an economy on
the brink of collapse and averted a depression. He takes credit for a
resurgence in manufacturing, the rescue of the automobile industry
and the creation of more than 4 million jobs since February
2010.

Obama also slams Republicans in Congress for blocking his plans to stimulate more jobs. To
inoculate himself from potential setbacks over the summer and fall,
he warns of economic trouble spilling over from Europe.

In the
end, Obama says, he would keep the country moving forward while
Romney would take it back to the George W. Bush policies that wrecked
the economy in the first place.

Verizon is changing up its cell phone
plans, moving toward monthly plans that allow users to connect up to
10 devices, including tablets and PCs, to their cell phone network.

Duke Energy is asking state regulators if it can bump customers' rates up again. Duke says the
increases are to pay for infrastructure investments. The change would
increase customer costs of electric service by $86 million and for
natural gas by $44 million. A federal appeals court on Monday reinstated an antitrust lawsuit against Duke Energy that accuses the
company of paying kick-backs to corporations opposing a 2004 rate
increase.

A rally for “religious freedom”
will take place on Fountain Square today in response to federal health care
legislation requiring women to have abortions employers to
provide insurance that covers birth control. The law includes a
religious exemption, which bishops have said isn't enough.

New York City officials, including
Brooklyn Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke, are arguing that the city's
“Stop and Frisk” policy is racist. The policy allows police to
stop an individual and pat him or her down for contraband if they
suspect illegal activity. From USA Today:

Clarke says the program, known as "Stop, Question and Frisk"
or "Stop and Frisk," amounts to racial profiling. It is
based on a 1968 Supreme Court ruling that police could stop people on
the basis of "reasonable suspicion."

Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin approved
class-action status for a lawsuit that alleges the practice subjects
people to race-based illegal searches.

Rick Santorum has formed a new conservative organization aiming to
recruit 1 million supporters to help get Barack Obama out of the
While House. No word on how Santorum's “Patriot Voices” group
will differ from the tea party patriots.

Black members of the Netherlands soccer team were subjected to
racist chants at their Euro 2012 practice facility in Krakow, Poland.
The team says fans were making monkey chants at the players.

LeBron James scored 45 points to lead the
Miami Heat over the Boston Celtics last night, forcing a deciding Game 7 for the
Eastern Conference championship. The Oklahoma Thunder await in the
NBA Finals.

The Enquirer today broke out its
Freedom of the Press Card, pressing the city to release details of
the bids to build the streetcar's five vehicles. Enquirer
Editor and Vice President Carolyn Washburn says the newspaper is
being a good watchdog by investigating all the redacted parts of
documents released by the city, which reportedly include typical
streetcar parts, performance data and personal information of
employees. A firm called CAF USA, which won the bid for more than $20
million, is trying to block the release of the data, along with two
losing bidders who claim the information is trade secret.

President Obama enjoyed an enthusiastic
welcome from Los Angeles LGBT supporters at an event in Beverly Hills.
Republicans are saying Obama is being all glitzy in California so
he's out of touch with Americans' struggles.

A local music teacher says Cincinnati
Hills Christian Academy offered him a job and then rescinded the
offer after asking him if he is gay. Jonathan Zeng says he went
through the school's extensive interview process, was offered a
position and then called back in for a discussion about religious
questions in his application, during which he was asked directly if
he is gay. Zeng says he asked why such information was pertinent, and
an administrator said it was school policy not to employ teachers who
are gay because they work with children and something about the
sanctity of marriage. When contacted by local media CHCA released the
following statement:

CHCA keeps confidential all matters
discussed within a candidate's interview. We're looking into this
matter, although the initial information we have seen contains
inaccuracies. We will not be discussing individual hiring decisions
or interviews.

As expected, the pay equity bill failed along party lines,
52-47, short of the required 60-vote threshold. But for majority
Democrats, passage wasn't the only point. The debate itself was aimed
at putting Republicans on the defensive on yet another women's issue,
this one overtly economic after a government report showing
slower-than-expected job growth.

"It is incredibly disappointing that in this make-or-break
moment for the middle class, Senate Republicans put partisan politics
ahead of American women and their families," Obama said in a
statement after the vote.

Hamilton County has been killing people more often than Ohio counties of similar size, despite actually asking for the death penalty less often. Today'sEnquirer takes a look at the growing opposition to the death
penalty in other states and recent legislation and task forces aimed
at either studying its effectiveness or stopping the practice
altogether. Prosecutor Joe Deters says he's going to kill all the people who deserve it because the law is still the law.

Would you like to pay tolls or higher
gas taxes in order to have a new Brent Spence Bridge? No? Then you're
like a majority of people who take the time to respond to Enquirer polls.

City Manager Milton Dohoney plans to
ask City Council to raise the property tax rate in response to a
projected $33 million 2013 deficit that everyone knows was coming.

So last Thursday Romney held a surprise
press conference at Solyndra's shuttered headquarters. During his
prepared statement, Romney said:

"An independent inspector general
looked at this investment and concluded that the Administration had
steered money to friends and family and campaign contributors."

Romney then repeated the claim later in
the press conference.

Small problem: No inspector
general ever "concluded" such a thing, at least not based
on any written reports or public statements.

Wisconsin Gov./Union Crusher Scott
Walker holds a slight lead over his Democratic challenger, Milwaukee
Mayor Tom Barrett, according to a recent poll.

George Zimmerman is back in jail after
what his attorney is calling a misunderstanding over telling a judge
that he had limited money even though a website set up to fund his
legal defense raised more than $135,000.

The FBI has been investigating the
long-stalled Kenwood Towne Place development for the past year, and a
grand jury will determine whether crimes were committed involving the
improper use of funding for the project, according to The Enquirer.
CityBeat on May 16 reported that Nathan Bachrach, host of local radio
show Simply Money, was among those in heat over the
development's debt.

The city of Cincinnati used eminent
domain to secure a piece of Over-the-Rhine property to build its
streetcar maintenance facility.

So, uh, Councilwoman Laure Quinlivan
rewrote the lyrics to John Fogerty’s “Proud Mary” (“Rolin' on
the River”) as part of a promotion for the World Choir Games.
Celebrities such as Bootsy Collins, Nick Lachey and Jerry Springer
participated. Cool? Awkward? The city does look pretty nice — shots
were filmed at Fountain Square, Great American Ballpark, Findlay
Market, the School for Creative and Performing Arts and the
Serpentine Wall.

John Edwards is basically off the hook after
jurors returned from nine days of deliberations believing that the
government did not prove its case. Edwards was found guilty one one
charge of accepting illegal campaign contributions to hide his
pregnant mistress, but a mistrial was declared on five charges.

President Obama and Mitt Romney
reportedly spoke on the phone yesterday. Romney says they exchanged
pleasantries and congratulations. Obama apparently gave Romney some credit for his health care bill, which sounds kind of passive aggressive.

The nation's unemployment rate is up to
8.2 percent; apparently a third month of disappointing payroll led to
the addition of only 69,000 jobs.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg
is being called “Nanny Bloomberg” in response to his proposed ban
on extra large sodas by people such as 18-year-old Johnny Ojeda of
Kansas City, who reportedly pounded a 21-ounce soda and its 240
calories in front of Kansas City Star reporters.

DC Comics' Green Lantern is revealed to be gay in an issue that comes
out next week. Green Lantern is one of the comics' oldest heroes and
the latest in a growing number of out superheroes. From the San
Jose Mercury News:

In May, Marvel
Entertainment said super speedster Northstar will marry his longtime
boyfriend in the pages of "Astonishing X-Men." DC comics
has other gay characters, too, including Kate Kane, the current
Batwoman.

And in the pages of Archie Comics, Kevin Keller is one of the
gang at Riverdale High School and gay, too.

Some groups have protested the inclusion of gay characters, but
Robinson isn't discouraged, noting that being gay is just one aspect
to Scott.

The Enquirer today offered a
dramatic headline on its front page story, asking the figurative
question, “Who will blink first on Music Hall deal?” Although
Mayor Mark Mallory is able to literally blink, such involuntary
action will not directly affect his stance on giving away Music Hall,
which he is still opposed to.

Cincinnati's outstanding stadium tax
bonds were downgraded by Moody's Investor Services, partially as a
result of the county's sale of Drake Hospital last year and its
unwillingness to cut the property tax rollback that helped convince
rich people to vote for the tax in the first place.

Gov. John Kasich this week signed an
executive order allowing the Ohio Lottery Commission to expedite new
rules allowing slot machines at racetracks. The state's seven
racetracks are expected to begin submitting applications for the
17,500 machines within the next few months.

A Seattle man yesterday killed five
people before shooting himself as authorities closed in on him.
Various security cameras caught footage of the suspect entering a
cafe, where he allegedly shot and killed four people. He reportedly killed
another person during a carjacking. According to The Seattle Times,
the suspect is Ian Lee Stawicki, 40, of Seattle, whose brother says
he is mentally ill.

The Ohio Supreme Court
late last week dismissed a legal challenge by the Campaign to Protect
Marriage, which had filed a motion challenging the attorney general’s
authority to verify a proposed constitutional amendment that would
allow same-sex marriage. The Freedom to Marry coalition is collecting
the necessary signatures to put a repeal of the state’s 2004
amendment that only recognizes marriage as between a man and a woman
on the ballot in 2013.

City Councilman Wendell
Young says there’s nothing secret about a plan to combine the
region’s water and sewer agencies even though most people assumed
to be needed for approval know little about it. The Enquirer today
detailed a plan to integrate the Metropolitan Sewer District,
Stormwater Management Utility and Greater Cincinnati Water Works,
potentially by September, in an attempt to save money. The plan will
reportedly be shared with Council June 20.

Media musings from Cincinnati and beyond

• I was at UPI in London during the 1963 March on
Washington. I read about it in London dailies and the Paris
Herald-Tribune. Since then, all kinds of “marches” on Washington have
cheapened the brand. So has the obsessive replaying of snippets from
King’s “I Have a Dream” speech as if it were the event. I’m grateful to
news media that went further in recalling the magnitude of the 1963
march and roles played by organizers and other speakers. This was part
of the 1960s that I missed.

• Court rulings allow the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s
heir to own and control his “I Have a Dream” speech to the 1963 march.
Anyone wanting to use more than a few words must pay. My first reaction
was “WTF? It was a public event in a public place and a public speech to
the public. That can be ‘owned’? Yup.

• Stenographic reporting of the so-called debate over
whether to bomb Syria back into the Stone Age helps build acceptance for
a new war. Similarly, assertions that Assad’s forces gassed civilians
are repeatedly reported as evidence or proof.

As of this writing, reporters have quoted no top Obama
administration official willing to offer evidence or proof. Instead, as
evidence, we have unverified videos online and interpretations of what
the images show. Reporters don’t tell us who provided death figures or
who provided information that White House is using the claim Sarin gas
was used.

• Meanwhile, the constitutional expectation that only
Congress can declare war has suffered the same fate as the Fourth
Amendment ban on unreasonable seizures and searches; dying if not dead.

Germany and Japan attacked us. Congress responded for the
most recent time: 1942. Russia’s surrogate attacked our dictator across
the 38th Parallel in 1950 and triggered the still-unresolved Korean
police action. LBJ was conned or knowingly lied about reported 1964
attacks on American warships in the Tonkin Gulf and moved us into the
undeclared Vietnam War. Luckily, Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait in1990
and started Gulf War I. The CIA’s totally mistaken 2002 “slam dunk”
assurance about Weapons of Mass Destruction was used by Bush to justify
undeclared Gulf War II. After 9/11, Afghans sheltered Osama bin Laden
before our allies in Pakistan sheltered him and that was used to justify
our unfinished and undeclared war against the Taliban in both countries
although the Taliban never attacked us. Let’s not even get into the
invasion of Panama or Grenada or fiasco in Somalia. All that’s missing
in this latest rush to bash a hornets nest is a repeat of the New York
Times sycophantic reporting that Saddam Hussein had and would use
weapons of mass destruction.

• If you want a weapon of mass destruction, how about the
AK-47, the totemic Soviet assault rifle that is ubiquitous on every
continent or the simple machete/panga with which millions have been and
are being murdered and/or mutilated. No chemical, biological or nuclear
weapon has killed so many people.

• When will some national reporter ask, “What’s surgical
about a surgical strike?” Nothing unless we’re comparing it to carpet
bombing a la Germany, Japan, Laos or Vietnam.

Other than assassinating Assad with a drone-launched
guided missile — good enough for Americans in Yemen — any attack on
Syria will create “collateral” damage. They used to be called innocent
victims, sort of like French civilians killed by Allies’ D-Day bombing.

However, it’s no mystery why news media are willing, even
eager to echo this desensitizing insider language. It recalls “RPG,”
“IED,” “smart bombs,” “boots on the ground” and similar military
language embraced by civilian reporters for their civilian audiences.
Except those buzz words weren’t for civilian audiences; it was how
reporters assured military sources that journalists were savvy and
sympathetic listeners.

“Surgical strikes” serves us as badly as reporting
unsupported assertions and assumptions as fact. Accurately reported
bullshit is still bullshit.

• Accurate reporting requires context. Why is gassing
hundreds of Syrian civilians in Damascus worse than shooting and killing
as many or more civilians about in and around Cairo? Why is the killing
and wounding of thousands in Cairo worse than endlessly raping,
wounding, mutilating and killing millions of civilians in the horribly
misnamed Democratic Republic of Congo?

• Our selective condemnation of poison gas recalls the
11th-century papal ban of the cross bow; peasant crossbowmen could kill
armored knights from an unmanly and impersonal distance. That also was
bad for the social order. Welsh bowmen faced no such opprobrium although
their arrows killed far more mounted knights.

Jump ahead almost a millennium. There is debate on what is
a chemical weapon and not all gasses — think tear gas — are poisonous.
Poison gas was used infrequently but without sanction during the past
100 years.

Germans and the British gassed each other during World War
I. Communists were accused of using poison gas during Russian Civil
War. Italians gassed native troops in Ethiopia in the 1930s in years
when colonial powers were suspected/accused of gassing rebellious native
troops. Japanese gassed Chinese during early World War II. Egyptians
gassed Yemeni forces in the 1960s but Americans denied using
toxic/blister gasses in Vietnam and Laos. Iraq deployed lethal gas
against its own people and Iranian forces in the insane Iraq-Iran 1980s
war. Politicians and UN officials fulminate against gassing civilians
but they only remind us how selective agony and journalism can be.

• No less authority than President Obama relegated the
comparative to the dustbin of grammar. His speech at the Lincoln
Memorial last week praised King and other civil rights activists, saying
“Because they marched, America became more free and more fair.” True,
but I’ll bet King would have said, “freer and fairer.”

• Everyone’s lauding David Frost’s evocative interviews
with disgraced Richard Nixon after he resigned the presidency. He died
after a heart attack on Saturday.

My memory of Frost is different: TW3, the original That
Was the Week that Was on BBC TV. It was as irreverent as posh Brits from
Oxbridge could be and Frost was a central figure in its creation in
1962 and weekly broadcasts until it was cancelled to avoid criticism as
the 1964 general election neared. Two skits stand out in my memory, in
part because my Saturday night duties at UPI included watching and
filing a story on anything newsworthy that TW3 did/said.

The first showed an otherwise empty set with seemingly
naked Millicent Martin, then young and drop-dead lovely, astride and
leaning over the back of a curvy, modern Arne Jacobsen chair. It was the
same pose call girl Christine Keeler used when photographed during the
scandal over her affair with government minister John Profumo. You can
see the original Keeler image at www.vam.ac.uk. Martin
resembled Keeler just as Tina Fey looked like Sarah Palin. Martin
looked straight at the camera and said something like, “John told me I
was sitting on a fortune.” That was it. Perfect lampoon but there was no
way to use that skit on UPI’s wire.

The second memorable skit followed the apparent TW3 and
BBC late night sign-off. A De Gaulle look alike, right down the uniform
and kepi on his head, addressed the Brits contemptuously over some
strategic or diplomatic blunder. Then the broadcast ended. That skit
was newsworthy. BBC said its switchboard operators — remember, this was
the early 1960s — were overwhelmed. Seemed the perfect jab at the
Establishment by its children fooled a lot of Brits; they thought BBC
really had broadcast a De Gaulle speech.

• On a celebratory note, authorities dropped charges
against Tim Funk, religion reporter for the Charlotte Observer, who
arrested while he interviewed “Moral Monday” demonstrators at the
Statehouse in Raleigh, NC. He was charged with second-degree trespass
and failure to disperse.

Tim’s a Northern Kentuckian and among the ablest of
decades of my undergraduate students. After the local prosecutor came to
his senses, Tim told the AP, “It was clear to everyone there that I was
a news reporter just doing my job interviewing Charlotte-area clergy
about how they felt about being arrested. The reporter’s job is to be
the eyes and ears of the public who can’t be present at important public
events like this protest. That’s all I was doing.”

When his June 10 arrest was reported, at least one
respondent noted that Tim was among the first detained, stopping him
from seeing how police handled demonstrators.

His editor, Rick Thames, told AP, “This is clearly the
right result, and we congratulate the district attorney for making the
right decision. Tim Funk was working as a journalist inside the most
obvious public building in our state. The videotape of Tim’s arrest
demonstrates clearly that his only purpose in being there was to provide
our readers a vivid firsthand account. He was clearly not obstructing
the police. It’s hard to understand why he was arrested in the first
place.”

• Cincinnati taxpayers need to know more about competing —
and inescapably costly — plans to overcome years of city council
shortchanging the city pension fund. The news isn’t good. As the
Enquirer’s James Pilcher put it Sunday, “if every man,woman and child
living in the city of Cincinnati contributed $2,000 apiece, it still
wouldn’t be enough to fill the plan’s current $870 million gap.”

There’s a timeline with his explanatory story that screams
for elaboration: What, if any, roles did mayoral candidates Roxanne
Qualls and John Cranley play in council decisions to deepen the pension
debt?

And I howled at the quote from state auditor Dave Yost: “ .
. . the city is in a fork in the road . . . And I’m concerned
Cincinnati is not doing enough to avoid going down that fork in the
road.”

Don’t try this at home. Sort of like standing with a foot
on each side of a barbed wire fence. Reminds me of a friend who’d look
right, point left and say, “Go this way.”

Maybe with Yost’s sense of direction, Cincinnati should consider the road not taken.

Ohioans for Responsible Solutions launches chapters in Columbus and Cleveland

The gun violence prevention group founded by former
Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on July 27 announced the launch of
Ohioans for Responsible Solutions, which will continue the
organization’s efforts to support officials who back responsible gun
legislation.

The new chapters, in Cleveland and Columbus, are part of
Americans for Responsible Solutions (ARS), which Giffords and her
husband, retired Navy Captain and astronaut Mark Kelly, launched in January.

“People in the Buckeye State know the terrible toll gun
violence takes on communities,” ARS Executive Director Pia Carusone said
in a statement. “We’re excited about what the 18,000-plus Ohioans for
Responsible Solutions will accomplish because they represent a rich
cross-section of the community: gun owners and non-gun owners alike, law
enforcement officials, victims of gun violence, faith leaders, moms
and voters of all political stripes from every part of the state.”

Giffords’ organization says it is not anti-gun — Giffords
and Kelly are both gun owners — instead arguing that the gun lobby’s
influence has kept legislators from passing common-sense legislation
that most Americans support.

A Gallup poll conducted April 22-25 found 65 percent of
Americans believed the U.S. Senate should have passed a measure to
expand background checks for gun purchases and ban some semi-automatic
weapons, which the Senate failed to pass April 17 because of procedural
steps requiring 60 votes to pass. The final vote was 54 in favor and 46
against. Twenty-nine percent
of Americans agreed with the Senate’s failure to pass the measure, and 6
percent had no opinion. The poll had a margin of error of +/-4
percentage points.

In January — just a month after the shooting massacre in
Newtown, Conn., that killed 20 children and six adults — Gallup found 91
percent of Americans support required background checks for all gun
sales. The poll asked respondents about each of nine key proposals
included in President Barack Obama’s plan to reduce gun violence. The
two least-supported proposals still had majority support, but these
issues turned out to be at the center of the legislation that failed to pass
the Senate four months later: reinstating a ban on assault weapons (60-percent support),
and limiting the sale of ammunition magazines to those with 10 rounds
or less (54-percent support).

Giffords has become one of the nation’s highest-profile
gun violence prevention activists since a shooting in 2011 that left her
partially paralyzed. Giffords survived the assassination attempt on Jan.
8, 2011 in Tucson, Ariz., when a mentally ill man shot her in the head
at a political event outside a grocery store. The man then fired on
other people, killing six and wounding 12 total.

Giffords and Kelly participated in the Northside Fourth
of July parade early this month as part of Americans for Responsible
Solutions’ “Rights and Responsibilities” cross-country tour promoting
the organization’s goal of advocating for candidates that support
responsible gun policies that protect both the public and the rights of
gun owners. CityBeat covered the event here.

“Stopping gun violence takes courage. The courage to do
right, the courage of new ideas,” Giffords told the Northside crowd
during a press event before the parade. “I’ve seen great courage when my
life was on the line. Now is the time to come together to be
responsible. Democrats, Republicans, everyone. We must do something.
Fight, fight, fight.”

Americans for Responsible Solutions announced this week
that its super PAC has raised $6.5 million so far this year and more
than 500,000 members. At this point it has not announced any plans for a Cincinnati
chapter.

Senator announces support for gay marriage two years after son comes out

Terrace Park isn’t the likeliest of neighborhoods for
Cincinnatians to mingle with diverse groups of people, so it wouldn’t be that
surprising if Sen. Rob Portman maybe didn’t have much experience interacting
with gay people before his son came out two years ago.

But boy what a difference a gay son and two years of
reflection make.

Portman had to prepare his own coming out speech yesterday,
this one to his GOP senatorial brothers and sisters, none of which support
same-sex marriage. Imagine how nervous he must have been, sleeves rolled up,
flag pin hanging slightly askew as he spoke to reporters in response to the
op-ed he published supporting gay marriage. If he stuttered at all it’s not
because he wasn’t earnest — he just really loves his son.

Two years ago Portman’s son, Will, was a freshman at Yale when he came home and explained that being gay “was not a choice,” which seems
to have resonated with Dad. Portman consulted with religious leaders and other men
who have been anti-gay even though they have close family members who are
homosexual, like former Vice President Dick Cheney, who probably said something
like, “Dude, it doesn’t matter anymore now that Obama is talking about queers
in the State of the Union and shit. Roll Tide.”

Portman explained his new found interest in respecting
millions of fellow humans this way: "[I
want] him to have the same opportunities that his brother and sister would have
— to have a relationship like Jane and I have had for over 26 years.”

Portman says he would like to see congress overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, a
redundant and discriminatory piece of legislation banning federal recognition
of gay marriage, which he helped pass in 1996. But he still doesn’t think the
federal government should tread on the states and make them recognize it if
they don’t want to.

Meanwhile,
in Washington Harbor, Md., Republicans at the Conservative Political
Action Conference yesterday discussed their bigotry during a panel called
"A Rainbow on the Right: Growing the Coalition." The featured speaker
was Jimmy LaSalvia, whose Republican gay-rights organization GOProud wasn’t
allowed to sponsor the conference.

While gay-rights leaders celebrate the support and the
possibility of other powerful Republicans realizing that they know and care about
someone who is different, the announcement brings attention to other
conservatives trying to remove yuckiness from the party’s official stance on
homosexuality and gay marriage.

Jon Huntsman, a GOP presidential candidate in 2012 who had endorsed civil
unions, said this year that he supports marriage rights. Furthermore, he framed
it in conservative terms.

"There is nothing conservative about denying other Americans the
ability to forge that same relationship with the person they love," he
wrote.

And Theodore Olson, a former solicitor general for President George W. Bush,
has been one of the lead attorneys challenging California's Proposition 8, a
ballot initiative barring same-sex marriage in that state. (Portman fretted in
his op-ed that a court decision might hamper the political movement toward
legalizing gay and lesbian weddings.)

And Fred Malek, a Republican power-broker, told NBC News this week that
conservatives shouldn't feel threatened by gays and lesbian couples who wish to
marry.

"I've always felt that marriage is between a man and a woman, but other
people don't agree with that," he said. "People should be able to
live their lives the way they choose. And it's not going to threaten our
overall value system or our country to allow gays to marry, if that's what they
want to do."

Nearly a quarter of Republicans reportedly support same-sex
rights, leaving the door open for plenty more GOP leaders to search for gay family
members on Facebook who might offer insight inspirational enough to frame their
own stories of new found compassion and respect for other people.

Media musings from Cincinnati and beyond

• Giovanna Chirri, the veteran Vaticanista who understood
the pope’s Latin, broke the news that he’d just announced his
resignation. She works for the Italian news agency, ANSA. Her skill
recalled Ernest Sackler at Rome’s UPI bureau when I was a
photojournalist stringer during John XXIII’s papacy. Ernest truly
understood Vatican Latin well enough to turn it into flowing English;
colleagues spoke of him with awe.

• I’m grateful to the Enquirer for running a story on Sen.
Rand Paul’s response to the State of the Union Message. It wasn’t on
NPR or any other network that I could find. His Washington office did
not respond to my question of whether the Kentucky Republican offered his
remarks to any broadcasters/cable networks.

• Tens of millions of Americans will become eligible for
subsidized medical care under Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Who’s going
to treat them? I haven’t seen that in the news. And while reporters are
working out that story, ask how the required additional primary care
physicians will pay off college and medical school debts on the salaries
that will be paid to their specialties.

• And once journalists dig into the supply of physicians
to handle Medicaid expansion, I hope they’ll ask who’s going to staff
quality preschool education for every American child. Obama can be
aspirational, but we’re not talking about minimum wage diaper changers.
Early learning centers require trained pre-school educators. And while
they’re at it, reporters should ask where these new early childhood
educators will train and who’s going pick up the tab. After all, they’ll
never repay college loans on day care wages.

• Maybe I missed it in the admiring coverage of our
government killing American Islamists abroad with drone rocket attacks: What prevents Obama from killing Americans in this country with drone
strikes? None of the news stories or commentaries I’ve read or heard
addressed that point.

There would be no shortage of targets. Wouldn’t the
sheriff have loved a drone-launched missile to kill Christopher Dorner,
the rogue ex-LAPD cop? That might have spared the deputy whom Dorner
killed during the flaming finale in the San Bernardino mountains. And
what prevents our increasingly militarized police from using their own
armed drones?

Imagine what authorities could have done with armed drones during earlier, infamous encounters:

A missile fired at armed members of the American Indian
Movement at Wounded Knee, S.D., could have avenged inept, vain
and foolish George Armstrong Custer and FBI agents killed in the 1973
siege.

No feds would have died if a drone-launched missile
incinerated Randy Weaver’s family with during its deadly 1992
confrontation with feds at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

David Koresh and the Branch Davidian religious sect were
incinerated by the feds’ 1993 armored assault in Texas. That would have
been a perfect photo op for a domestic drone attack.

• Sometimes, “national security” is the rationale for requested or commanded self-censorship, even when secrets aren’t secret.

For instance, British editors held stories about Prince
Harry until he returned the first time from Afghanistan. However, an
Australian women’s magazine reported he was in combat. The non-secret
was a secret because no one paid attention.

More recently, the new U.S. drone base in Saudi Arabia was
supposed to be a secret. Obama officials asked major news media to hold
the story and they agreed. National security, you know.

But it wasn’t a secret. Washington Post blogger Erik
Wemple said Fox News already had reported U.S. plans to build the
facility in Sept. 2011. Three months before that, the Times of
London reported construction of the Saudi drone base.

When the New York Times broke the agreement and reported
the Saudi drone base, everyone jumped on the story. Now, the Times, the
Post and AP are trying to explain why they kept the non-secret from us.

• Gone are the days when senior Israeli government
officials could call in top editors and broadcasters and tell them what
they could not report. Last week, a tsunami of technology overwhelmed
official Israeli efforts to censor the story of Prisoner X. Israeli
journalists were not to report his existence or mention the censorship
order. National security, you know. However, an Australian network named
an Aussie as Prisoner X and said he reportedly committed suicide three
years ago in an Israeli prison. Social media and the online world took
it from there: "Aussie recruited by Israeli spy agency dies in Israeli
prison." Israel dropped efforts to censor the Prisoner X story and is
issuing official statements about the case.

• San Bernardino’s sheriff asked journalists to quit
tweeting from the final gunfight with former LAPD cop Christopher
Dorner. Bizarre. If authorities feared Dorner would gain tactical
information, they misread his situation: Dorner was surrounded in a
mountain cabin, tear gas was being lobbed in and men outside were
trying to shoot him. He probably was too busy to read tweets. Moreover,
only one reporter was close enough to tweet anything remotely useful to
anyone. Most reporters initially or finally ignored the sheriff.

The tweet issue first arose during the 2008 Muslim
terrorist attack on Mumbai when invaded the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. Some
authorities reportedly feared accomplices outside were reading news
media tweets and forwarding tactical information about police and army
movements to gunmen inside. I don’t remember if anyone asked reporters
to quit tweeting.

• A new poll says Fox hit an alltime low for the four
years Public Policy Polling has tracked trust/distrust among TV
networks: 41 percent trust Fox, 46 percent do not. The poll didn’t find anything for
other networks to brag about. Only PBS had more “trust” than “distrust”
among viewers: 52 percent trust, 29 percent don’t trust. The poll questioned 800
voters by telephone from Jan. 31 to Feb. 3.

• Garry Wills’ new book, Why Priests, sets out to debunk
Catholicism’s dearest dogmas and doctrines concerning priests, bishops
and the papacy. NPR’s Diane Rehm gave him an hour last week to say why
Catholic ordained clergy are an unnecessary accretion. Then she asked an
outgunned parish priest from the Washington, D.C. area for a rebuttal.
If she really wanted a lively, informed argument, there is no shortage
of priest-scholars who could have matched Wills’ credentials and talents
as an historian. It was unfair and cringe-worthy.

• It’s touchy when an unpleasantry is brought up in an
obit: a long forgiven conviction, a “love child,” whatever. More often,
predictably awkward moments are omitted in the spirit of de mortuis nil
nisi bonum. Here’s HuffingtonPost on a full-blown omission in the recent
obit on former New York mayor and mensch Ed Koch:

“The New York Times revised its Friday obituary
. . . after several observers noticed that it lacked any mention of his
controversial record on AIDS. The paper's obituary, written by longtime
staffer Robert D. MacFadden, weighed in at 5,500 words. Yet, in the
first version of the piece, AIDS was mentioned exactly once, in a
passing reference to ‘the scandals and the scourges of crack cocaine,
homelessness and AIDS.’ The Times also prepared a 22-minute video on
Koch's life that did not mention AIDS. This struck many as odd; after
all, Koch presided over the earliest years of AIDS, and spent many years
being targeted
by gay activists who thought he was not doing nearly enough to stop the
spread of the disease. Legendary writer and activist Larry Kramer called Koch ‘a murderer of his own people’ because the mayor was widely known as a closeted gay man.”

• New York’s Ed Koch admired Wall Street Journal reporter
Danny Pearl’s recorded last words before Muslim terrorists beheaded him.
Koch had Pearl’s affirmation of faith engraved on his own tombstone in
Manhattan’s Trinity Church graveyard: “My father is Jewish, my mother is
Jewish, I am Jewish.”

• A former student reporter rarely rates an obit in the
national media, but Annette Buchanan wasn’t ordinary. In the mid-1960s,
she refused a court order to name sources for her story about student
marijuana use on the University of Oregon campus. Her story ran in the
Oregon Daily Emerald, the campus paper. No shield law protected her
promise of confidentiality. The Emerald said she was fined the maximum
$300 and the state supreme court affirmed her contempt of court
conviction. That led to the creation of Oregon’s shield law for
journalists. She died recently.

• An unresolved First Amendment issue is whether bloggers
can be protected by state shield laws that allow journalists to keep
sources secret. The latest case is from New Jersey. Poynter.com
said blogger Tina Renna refused to identify government officials whom
she said misused county generators after Hurricane Sandy. Union County
prosecutors demanded the 16 names, saying Renna wasn’t a journalist
protected by New Jersey’s shield law because she’s been involved in
politics, her blog is biased and she’s often critical of county
government.

The Newark Star-Ledger took her side. It said shield law protection “shouldn’t
hinge on whether someone is a professional, nonpartisan or even
reliable journalist. It’s a functional test: Does Renna gather
information that’s in the public interest and publish it? Yes.” Renna “can
be a little wild, she’s not the same as a professional reporter and she
drives local officials crazy. But part of democracy is putting up with
Tina Renna.” A court will probe whether Renna is a journalist as defined
by the state shield law; that is, whether bloggers can be included by
analogy under protected electronic news media.

• Few ledes — introductory sentences in news stories — are
as lame as those saying the subject “doesn’t look” like some
stereotype. For years, it usually referred to a woman in an
unconventional (read men’s) occupation or pastime. “She didn’t look
like a steelworker . . . “ or, “You wouldn’t think a tiny blonde bagged a
deadly wild boar with a huge .44 magnum revolver.” Male subjects aren’t
immune, as in this lede from a recent Washington Post story: “Farmer
Hugh Bowman hardly looks the part of a revolutionary who stands in the
way of promising new biotech discoveries and threatens Monsanto’s
pursuit of new products . . . ”

What do revolutionaries look like? Lenin was pictured in
suit and tie. Gandhi wore a white, draped sari or dhoti, Mandela and
fellow ANC rebels often wore suits and ties. Young 1960s American and
French student rebels never wore suits and ties and needed haircuts.
Today’s young North African activists dress the same for class or a
demonstration.

“Doesn’t look like” wouldn’t even fit an androgynous male
model in the annual Victoria’s Secret fashion show. He’d be there
because he looks like a classic, young, leggy “angel.”

• Have you noticed how hurricanes, floods, blizzards and
tornadoes are morphing from evidence of climate change into photo ops?
News media see them as so common that little reporting is required
beyond images and stories of hardship: shoppers hoarding sliced white
bread, downed trees and shattered homes, marooned airline passengers and
days without power. Maybe there’s the throwaway quote from some
climatologist about change affecting weather, but for the most part,
that’s it. I’m betting this deliberate ignorance is a Republican Party
plot to show that increasingly frequent, dangerous weather reflects the
Intelligent Design that gave us dino-riding cavemen a few thousand years
ago.

• The Enquirer devoted Page 1 to a dramatic OMG! graphic
and story suggesting Cincinnati was terrible because it had no black
candidate for mayor. An accompanying list of movers and shakers had few
blacks. The presentation suggested the all-white mayoral contest meant
amiss in a city where whites are the largest minority. However, whites
and blacks told reporters that leadership rather than color was foremost
among attributes they sought in a mayor. Moreover, with so many African
Americans in visible leadership roles in the city, having a black mayor
succeed a black mayor was less of an issue than the paper suggested.

America is a country at war. While the war in Iraq
ostensibly drew down in December 2011, the United States has been
quagmired in a war in Afghanistan for more than a decade.

But we're also in the midst of a number of other wars — cultural wars. It started with Nixon’s War on Drugs, then quickly escalated.

President Barack Obama’s environmental regulations on coal
mining caused proponents to claim he had declared a War on Coal. The
Affordable Care Act’s mandate that companies pay for employee
contraception caused many faith groups to claim a War on Religion.

Statements from Republican politicians about “legitimate
rape” and “binders full of women” caused some Democrats to claim the GOP
had declared a War on Women.

And the ever-vigilant conspiracists news hounds at FOX
News have exposed a scheme by Jesus-hating liberals to wage a War on
Christmas for trying to remove constitutionally questionable dolled-up
trees and pastoral scenes of babies in unsuitable barn-life cribbery
faith-based displays from public property.

But by far the most heinous altercation being waged
originated with Republican Ohio Senate President Tom Niehaus, who has
declared a War on Babies.

As first reported by The Enquirer, conservative groups
this week sent out a press release vilifying Niehaus for killing tons of babies in a
mass effort to wipe out the state’s youth population a 17-month old bill
that would give Ohio one of the strictest abortion laws in the nation.

Niehaus moved the so-called Heartbeat Bill — which would
ban all abortions after the first detectable fetal heartbeat — from the
Health Committee to the Rules and Reference Committee to avoid a forced
vote on the legislation. He also removed staunch anti-abortion Senators
Keith Faber and Shannon Jones from that committee.

“I’m shocked by Tom Niehaus’ war on pro-life women,” wroteLori
Viars in the news release. Viars is the vice president of Warren County
Right to Life and vice chair of Warren County Republican Party.

Viars called for Republicans to remove Niehaus from Senate
leadership. Niehaus is term-limited and will not continue on in office
after this year.

Niehaus blamed Romney’s loss for his decision to kill the
bill, saying that the Republican’s victory would have increased the
likelihood of a U.S. Supreme Court lineup that would uphold it against a
likely challenge.

Compares his policies to Clinton; Romney to Bush

Just two days before the general election, President Barack Obama
made his case to 13,500 people packed into the University of Cincinnati’s Fifth
Third Arena and 2,000 in an overflow room.

Obama cast the race in comparisons to the previous two
presidents, comparing his policies with those of Bill Clinton and equating Republican
challenger Mitt Romney’s plans with those of George W. Bush.

“So stay with me then,” Obama said. “We’ve got ideas that work,
and we’ve got ideas that don’t work, so the choice should be pretty clear.”

With less than 48 hours before polls open on Election Day,
a Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll had Obama and his Republican challenger locked
in a statistical dead heat. However the same poll showed Obama with a slight
edge in Ohio, up 48 percent to Romney’s 44 percent.

Obama touted his first-term accomplishments, including ending the
war in Iraq; ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the policy preventing homosexuals
from serving openly in the military; and overhauling the country’s health care
system.

“It’s not just about policy, it’s about trust. Who do you trust?”
the president asked, flanked by a sea of supporters waving blue “Forward”
signs.

“Look, Ohio, you know me by now. You may not agree with every
decision I’ve made, Michelle doesn’t always agree with me. You may be
frustrated with the pace of change … but I say what I mean and I mean what I
say.”

Nonpartisan political fact-checker PolitiFact on Nov. 3 took a
look at Obama’s record on keeping his campaign promises from 2008. The group rated
38 percent as Kept, 16 percent Compromised and 17 percent Broken.

Twice during his speech the president was interrupted by audience
members shouting from the stands.

The first was a man on the balcony level of the arena
interrupted, shouting anti-abortion slogans and waving a sign showing mutilated
fetuses before being dragged out by about five law enforcement officers. Both were
drowned out by supporters.

Music legend Stevie Wonder opened the rally for Obama, playing a
number of his hits, opening up “Superstition” with a refrain of “on the right
track, can’t go back.”

Wonder discussed abortion policy between songs and urged Ohioans
who had not already voted to do so either early on Monday or Election Day.

So far, 28 percent of Ohio voters have already cast their
ballots. CNN reports that those votes favor Obama 63/35, according to public
polling.

Meanwhile on Sunday, Romney campaigned before an estimated crowd
of 25,000 in Pennsylvania, according to the Secret Service.

Political rallies always draw a number of the loyal opposition,
and this late-evening appearance was no different. Only five people protested
near the line to the arena, but what they lacked in number they attempted to
make up for in message.

One large sign read “Obama: 666” and another “Obama is the Beast,”
alluding to a character in the Christian Biblical book of Revelation.

A man who only identified himself as Brooks carried a large
anti-abortion sign that showed pieces of a dismembered fetus.

“I’m here to stand up for the innocent blood that has been shed
in this land to the tune of 56 million,” Brooks said. He said he was opposed to
the politics of both major party presidential candidates.

“I pray for Barack Obama because his beliefs are of the
Antichrist, just like Romney,” Brooks said.

Brooks said his message for those in line was for them to vote
for Jesus — not on the ballot, but through their actions and through candidates
that espoused Christian beliefs.

“Obama is not going to change things, Romney is not going to
change things,” Brooks said. “In the last days there are many Christs, but not
the Christ of the Bible. The Christ of the Bible is not for killing children,
is not for homosexual marriage.”

Only four days left to early-vote in person. Find out where to do that here.

U.S. employers hired 171,000 people in October and revised
job growth over the previous two months, finding it had been stronger
than previously thought. However, unemployment inched up to 7.9 percent
from 7.8 percent in September, due to more out-of-work people looking
for work. People are only considered unemployed if they’re actively
searching for work. More people entering the workforce and increased job
growth had the stock market jumping, with the Dow Jones Industrial
Average futures up 30 points within minutes of the opening bell.

COAST has been keeping busy this week. The anti-tax group
filed two lawsuits, one trying to block the sale of some land near the
former Blue Ash Airport to prevent the cash from being used for the
streetcar, and the other against Cincinnati Public Schools over
allegations that staff used school emails to promote voter registration
drives and offering to volunteer and contribute to the campaign
supporting the CPS school levy (issue 42).

The U.S. Senate race between incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown
and Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel has been expensive, no doubt. But what
has all that money gone to? An analysis by The Enquirer shows that the
nearly $30 million spent by both campaigns on the race has gone from
everything from pollsters to Cincinnati Reds tickets to a used Jeep
Cherokee. The largest expenditure for Brown’s campaign was $1.7 million
for staff salaries, while the largest of Mandel’s expenditures was $1.7
million on TV ads.

People thinking about entering law school next year,
rejoice. Despite a dire job market for new graduates, both campaigns
have mobilized armies of lawyers in preparations to sue for votes in
battleground states. If the next election is this close, you might have a
job in four years. Assuming the Mayans were wrong about the apocalypse
and everything.

A joint committee of Cincinnati City Council met Thursday
to discuss allegations that workers at the University Square development
in Clifton aren’t being paid enough. They didn’t take any action, other
than asking the city to investigate, but agreed that there needs to be
better oversight to make sure workers on taxpayer-funded projects are
paid what they’re supposed to earn.

If you are accused of a crime in Ohio and police take your
DNA, they get to keep it on file, even if you’re acquitted. The Ohio
Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that DNA samples are like fingerprints
and can be kept even if a suspect is acquitted of a crime.

A bunch of dirty hippies “light warriors” buried hundreds
of muffin-crystal-thingies in at Serpent Mound to help realign the
energy of the ancient Native American burial mound. They were caught
because they made a YouTube video of their alleged desecration.

President Barack Obama has canceled scheduled Wednesday
appearances in Cincinnati and Akron to coordinate recovery efforts in
the wake of super storm Sandy, the White House announced Tuesday.

Obama was scheduled to highlight his second-term agenda
from economic growth and the middle class, according to a news release.
The release promised a “concrete and specific plan for the next four
years.” Both Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney have been vague
on details of exactly what they would do if elected next Tuesday.

Vice President Joe Biden had also canceled Tuesday
appearances in Wooster and Gambier, Ohio, “due to local preparations and
response efforts” for the storm.

Meanwhile Romney campaigned Tuesday morning near Dayton,
where his campaign collected supplies and donation to be sent to
storm-affected areas of New Jersey.

Hurricane Sandy slammed the East Coast last night. At
least 16 people are believed to have died from the storm, and as many
as 7.5 million were left without power. Areas of New York and New Jersey
also faced major flooding. It took until 4:30 a.m. for Sandy to go from
hurricane to tropical storm.

The Anna Louise Inn will be in court at 9 a.m. today arguing in front of the First District Court of Appeals, which could overturn a May ruling and allow the Inn to move forward with its renovation. CityBeat will have online coverage for the hearing later today.

Hamilton County’s probation department is facing
sexual harassment charges. The charges are coming from a county worker
who said her promotion was denied due to her actions “for opposing
discrimination and encouraging others to exercise their right to be free
from acts of discrimination.”

The Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes
filed a lawsuit Friday in an attempt to reverse the August reworking of
the Blue Ash airport deal. For COAST, the lawsuit is mostly to stall or
stop the financing for the $110 million Cincinnati streetcar.

City Council will vote next week to decide whether
the city should borrow $37 million to fund development projects and a
portion of the Homeless to Homes program. But Homeless to Homes is
generating some concern due to its requirement to move three shelters.

Mitt Romney is running a new ad against President Barack
Obama in Ohio that says Chrysler is moving Jeep production to China. The
ad, which Chrysler says is false, warranted a snarky response from the
car company: “Despite clear and accurate reporting, the take has given
birth to a number of stories making readers believe that Chrysler plans
to shift all Jeep production to China from North America, and therefore
idle assembly lines and U.S. workforce. It is a leap that would be
difficult even for professional circus acrobats.” The Obama team also
responded with its own ad. It is somewhat understandable Romney would be
getting a bit desperate at this point in the race. Ohio is widely
considered the most important swing state, but aggregate polling has
Romney down 1.9 points in the state. Romney is up 0.9 points nationally.

State Republicans are refusing to pull an ad that accuses
William O’Neill, Democratic candidate for the Ohio Supreme Court, of
expressing “sympathy for rapists.” This is despite the fact that Justice
Robert Cupp, O’Neill’s Republican opponent, has distanced himself from
the ad. At this point, even the most nonpartisan, objectives watchers
have to wonder why the Republican Party can’t keep rape out of its
messaging. In comments aired first on Aug. 19, U.S. Senate candidate
Todd Akin of Missouri said on pregnancy after rape, “If it's a
legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole
thing down.” On Oct. 23, Richard Mourdock, the Senate candidate for
Indiana, said, “I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came
to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life
begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that
God intended to happen.”

Ohio is getting closer to the health exchange deadline
with no plan in sight. Obamacare asks states to take up health exchanges
that act as competitive markets for different health insurance plans.
States are allowed to either accept, let the federal government run the
exchanges or take a hybrid approach. As part of the health exchanges,
the federal government will also sponsor a heavily regulated nonprofit
plan that sounds fairly similar to the public option liberals originally
wanted in Obamacare.

Meanwhile, Ohio and other states still haven’t decided
whether they will be expanding their Medicaid programs. In the past,
state officials have cited costs as a big hurdle, but one study from
Arkansas found Medicaid expansions actually saved money by reducing the
amount of uncompensated care. Some states that expanded Medicaid also
found health improvements afterward.

An inspector at the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) was
caught not doing her job. The inspector was supposed to do 128 site
visits for in-person safety inspections, but she apparently never showed
up to some of the schools and filed fraudulent reports.

Romney makes case for election at Jet Machine in Bond Hill

There are only a few more weeks of political commercials, ads, promises and accusations flooding the TV and radio before the Nov.
6 presidential election. While many Americans are tired of political
campaigning, Ohio — the most important swing state in the United States —
has been showing a great response toward the campaign as it nears its
end.

On Thursday, 4,000 people lined up outside of Jet Machine
in Bond Hill to hear Republican candidate Mitt Romney speak at 11 a.m.

After flying in to Lunken Airport on Wednesday night,
Romney had breakfast at First Watch in downtown Cincinnati on Thursday
morning before proceeding to the rally in Bond Hill.

His visit in Cincinnati was the first of a three-stop bus
tour in Ohio — along with Worthington and Defiance, Ohio later that
afternoon.

"The Obama campaign is slipping because he keeps talking
about smaller and smaller things when America has such big problems,"
Romney said.

Romney cheered on small businesses and promised that his businesses experience will help turn the economy around.

In a response to the Cincinnati rally, the Obama campaign
explained that Romney's visit was just another attempt to try and
convince Ohio workers that he is on their side and will stand up to
China, when in fact it's the opposite.

"As a corporate buyout specialist, Romney invested in
companies that pioneered the practice of shipping jobs to places like
China, shutting down American plants and firing workers — all while he
walked away with a profit," Jessica Kershaw, Obama for America — Ohio press secretary, explained.

"These jobs are likely to come at the expense of American
workers in cities like Cincinnati, and that’s why the people of Ohio
will not be supporting Mitt Romney this November.”

Romney ended the rally encouraging the Buckeye state to go to the polls and vote early.

"We need to make sure Ohio is able to send a message loud
and clear: We want real change. We want big change," Romney encouraged.

In an attempt to secure Ohio, President Obama is due in
Cincinnati on Halloween. With just two weeks remaining before election
day, a new Ohio poll from TIME.com says that Obama is winning 49 percent of Ohio, compared with Romney's 44 percent.